DBQ essay

DBQ

The civil war could not be avoided, but merely put off for a future date. During the period of 1800-1859; The War with Mexico, the Acquisition of Oregon and Texas, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act were three important events that led to the inevitable secession of Southern states and Civil War. It was based on a deep-rooted fundamental difference between the commercialized North and the agrarian South. The main essence of that difference was the way the two sides achieved their economic profits. One, the North, did not require slaves to make money: the other, the South, did.

In his Speech to the Senate, eleven years before the eruption of the civil war, Daniel Webster condemned abolitionists and viewed slavery as a historical fact not one to be messed with. This middle-ground decision was an attempt at compromise, but while southerners seemed happy, Northerners were outraged. This speech really focuses on what is the deep issue between the two sections, slavery. Even Abraham Lincoln’s argues that the states cannot be unified while slavery is a contested issue. In his Speech at the Republican state convention Lincoln states that either all states must accept slavery, or it must be abolished. States vs. Federal rights were also an issue that was used to deny or accept slavery. In the famous Lincoln vs. Douglas debates Douglas argues that states rights and local laws are more important than those of federal laws. With this type of attitude and mindset it is no wonder that the union split. If states were more powerful than the government holding them together, then any disagreement (such as that of slavery) could cause the states to simply up and leave.

In Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe portrays slaves as human beings that actually have a soul. This influenced many Northerners who were on the fence about slavery. In fact, in the first year alone 300,000 copes were sold. The reactions to the publishing of this book were varied. In the South people were outraged due to Beecher’s unfair representation of slavery. Much of the North saw it as eye opening and emotionally moving. This book drove yet another sliver between the two fractions of a country. Although the states were split into sections the House and Senate were dominated by one primary party during the set up to the Civil War: The Democrats. (The U.S Bureau of the Census) The uneven balance caused a further discomfort between the two parties and sections.

 “A Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina, from the Federal Union.” Gives proof of the inevitability of the Civil War. South Carolina, the first of many, has no seceded, and now Lincoln must help fight to preserve the Union because that is what he argued for all along.

Due to the constant differences between the two sections, North and South, it was impossible to avoid the issue of slavery and that of the Civil War. Both sides had invested to much in their opinion on slavery and could not back out of it. Thus the Civil War took place.